Satellite images of ballistic missile base are a further sign that US diplomacy has not led to significant disarmament
North Korea is maintaining more than a dozen missile launch sites, according to new research, in a further sign that the summit diplomacy pursued by Kim Jong-un has not led to any significant disarmament.
Donald Trump and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, have portrayed the US president’s June summit with Kim in Singapore as an unprecedented breakthrough, and pointed to the partial dismantling of a nuclear test site and a missile engine test area as side of progress towards North Korean disarmament.
The Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) thinktank in Washington however has published satellite photographs of a short-range ballistic missile operating base near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) capable of accommodating medium-range missiles and threatening US forces in the region. The CSIS researchers said the base was still being maintained and improved, and was one of 13 it had identified out of an estimated 20 in total.
The existence of the bases does not represent a violation of the agreement Kim made with Trump at the summit, which involved vaguely-worded pledges on the “denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”, which Pyongyang interprets as a gradual, staged and reciprocal process of disarmament.
“The CSIS report does a great job identifying missile operating bases that analysts have long suspected.
